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2 - Civilian Control

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2019

Aurélie Basha i Novosejt
Affiliation:
University of Kent, Canterbury
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Summary

McNamara moved more forcefully than any of his predecessors in implementing civilian control over the military, with a contemptuous and domineering attitude toward the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). His most important managerial innovations were designed to enforce “subjective control,” namely to impose civilian objectives and ideas on the military. The Draft Presidential Memoranda (DPMs) and the Planning, Programming and Budgeting System (PPBS) were designed to align military tools to civilian-defined foreign and economic policies. He worked closely with Secretary of State Dean Rusk to align military tools to the President’s foreign policy and with Secretary of the Treasury C. Douglas Dillon to ensure the Defense Department’s programs fit within a framework of fiscal discipline.

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Chapter
Information
‘I Made Mistakes’
Robert McNamara's Vietnam War Policy, 1960–1968
, pp. 37 - 56
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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